Rodeo Family. Mary Sullivan

this job, then you’ll do whatever you have to do to get me that article.”

      Something was making him desperate, and he was dead serious.

      Sure, there were laws against this kind of workplace harassment and coercion, but she couldn’t afford a lawyer.

      He was right. If he fired her, she would have to move away from her friends to find another job in reporting. She’d come back home because of a mistake she had made, only one, but it had been a doozy.

      She’d come back to the only home she knew, not because of the town or the geography, but because of her friends. They were her only family. Without them she was alone. That thought caused an ache so deep inside of her it felt like fire ate at her belly.

      Her aunt had been her sole remaining blood relative. She had died four years ago and had decided to ignore Nadine in death. She’d left nothing to Nadine, not a single penny or knickknack, as though every speck of resentment she’d felt toward her niece had followed her into the afterlife.

      So Nadine’s family was Rachel, Violet, Honey and Max, all of them tied together by common experiences and similar heartbreaks. They were the town fair’s Revival Committee, but also the best of friends, and now Rachel’s new sister-in-law, Samantha, had been added to the mix.

      Nadine liked Rodeo. She liked the people here. She respected them.

      Then Lee had told her the newspaper could be hers someday, a dream come true for her in Rodeo.

      When she’d left town the first time, it had been her choice. She didn’t want to be pushed out by someone else now, by Lee’s need for a dirty article. Unfortunately, she couldn’t live without the measly paycheck he paid her. Rodeo wasn’t exactly a bustling town. Nadine wasn’t even certain Vy could give her job at the diner, friend or not.

      But even more important than losing a paycheck, she couldn’t possibly lose her friendships. She’d lost a lot in New York City. Losing her friends would be far worse.

      Nadine stared at her boss. “Lee, what’s wrong?” She might be angry with him, but he had given her her first job and had encouraged her in her choice of career. He’d had enough faith in her skills to tell her that she could someday run this office. The small part of her that still cared worried about him.

      “What’s wrong?” she repeated.

      He rubbed his stomach as though it ached. “Nothing.”

      Then he scrubbed his hands over his face. “I—I can’t tell you.”

      He sounded more like the old Lee, as though he lurked inside of this new harder person.

      “What can I do?” Nadine asked.

      “Can you just get the story? Please?” Desperation again. “I meant what I said this morning, Nadine. Get me that story.”

      His tone might be softer and less mean, but the new Lee was determined, leaving Nadine with no choice but to do what he wanted.

      He glanced at her then away. “Take the afternoon off. Tomorrow will be soon enough to get back at it.”

      A peace offering, just when she was prepared to hate him.

      She left and closed the door behind her.

      When she stepped out onto Main Street, it looked the same as always...but also not. She’d gone through this before, in the city where her life had fallen apart. People walked down the street, smiling and waving as though life were normal. As though disaster, or the terrifying potential for it, hadn’t rocked her world.

      Her passion had always been journalism. It had given her an escape from loneliness and grief.

      She’d lost New York City and that had been monumentally awful. This would be even worse. Rodeo was home. When she’d left NYC, she’d known she had Rodeo to fall back on. If she lost this job and Rodeo, she would have nothing.

      If she got a job working for a newspaper in another small town, someplace desperate enough to hire her despite her mistake, she wouldn’t have the warm cloak of her friendships to keep her sadness at bay.

      Long-distance friendship had been okay while she had the excitement of her career in New York, but life in another small town without them close by would be unbearable.

      She hadn’t thought the bottom could fall out of her world again.

      Nadine unlocked her door, trudged up the stairs to her apartment above the office and stepped into a neat, tidy, arid space that returned a bit of her calm to her. She hung her dress in the green section of her bedroom closet and took off her baby blue heels. She folded each shoe in the tissue paper from their box, then slid the box back into place. All of her nice clothes were leftovers from her career in New York, and she planned to make them last.

      She’d only worn her dress for half the day. The next time she wore it, she would rinse it by hand. Like her car, she couldn’t afford to replace her clothing. She didn’t know what she would do once they wore out.

      She could shop in thrift stores, or the consignment shop in the next town, but her beautiful clothes were the shield that blocked out the critical voice in her head that belonged to her aunt.

      Consigning that worry to a far corner of her mind, she sat down to transcribe the recorded interview, only to realize how truly little she had wrung out of Zach. She tossed down her pen, glared around her spotless, well-ordered apartment and despaired.

      For a whole year, she had avoided feeling. She’d lived a parched existence because it was the only life she could handle. Lee had forced her feelings, all of her high emotions, back to the forefront. She was being drawn back into life.

      She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to feel.

      She didn’t want to remember.

      The silence in the apartment resounded as though it had life and breath. She needed to get out of here.

      Her phone rang. She grabbed it and checked the number. Violet. Thank God. When she answered, Nadine swallowed and forced herself to sound normal.

      “What are you doing for supper?” Vy asked.

      “Salad and tuna. Do you want to join me?”

      “Thought you’d never ask. I’ll be there at six.”

      Nadine spent the rest of the afternoon working on a couple of her regular columns, about events in the community, along with news about the townspeople that did not constitute gossip. She phoned around to get all of her facts straight. She sifted through her emails for announcements from people about the births, marriages and job promotions that filled her with pleasure, while deaths were few, thank goodness.

      Vy arrived at six on the dot. Nadine rushed to her and gave her a big hug, holding on longer than she should have.

      “Hey, hey, what’s going on?” Vy pulled away, a searching look on her face.

      “Lee’s being an ass.”

      “He’s been strange lately. What’s going on with him?”

      “I have no idea. He has these moods swings. At the moment, he’s being strange and demanding.”

      “You said you were going out to Zach’s farm today to interview him,” Vy said. “How did that go?”

      “Like pulling teeth.”

      “What did you expect? The guy’s sociable, but private.”

      Private with a capital P.

      Nadine prepared two servings of a salad and canned tuna with a sprinkling of lemon pepper. Vy nibbled on sliced radishes while Nadine worked.

      “Hey.” She swatted her friend’s hand away. “There won’t be any left for the salad.”

      “I’m starving.”

      “How can that be? You work in a diner.”